Category: crime & punishment

Every Korean leftist’s favorite news presenter, Sohn Suk-hee is in trouble:

 Sohn Suk-hee, the chief and well-known news presenter of the cable channel JTBC, faced police questioning Saturday over an allegation that he used violence against a freelance journalist.
Sohn was accused of punching the journalist in the face several times during a dinner meeting in Seoul in January.
The journalist, identified only by his surname, Kim, insisted that Sohn offered him a job at JTBC, then assaulted him after he rejected the offer. Kim said he was reporting on a car accident in which Sohn was involved a few years ago.
To undergo the police questioning, Sohn arrived at a police station in western Seoul at 7:40 a.m. for his first police questioning since the scandal arose in early January.
The JTBC chief has denied the allegation against him. He has filed a charge accusing Kim of extortion.

Yonhap

ROK Heads may remember that Sohn is in charge of JTBC which was the news station that aired the report about the tablet PC that led to the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye. However, since Park’s impeachment conservative journalists have proven that JTBC aired fake news to help bring her down.

Sohn Suk-hee then sued these journalists for libel that challenged JTBC’s reporting even though the reports were based on facts. The journalists were then sent to jail. It will be interesting to see if Sohn who committed a real crime, if the report of the assault is true, is sent to jail. If so he should be put in a cell right next to the journalists he had jailed.

Another Park Geun-hye era official is about to be indicted:

Prosecutors are expected to indict former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae later this week on charges that he abused his power to influence high-profile trials as a political tool to lobby the previous government. 
Yang, 71, is under pre-indictment detention upon a court approval of his arrest warrant on Jan. 24. He’s the first former chief of South Korea’s top court to have been arrested as a suspect and now to face a criminal trial.
The retired veteran justice with a law career over 40 years is accused of using or seeking to use trials as leverage to lobby the office of then President Park Geun-hye to get her approval for the establishment of a separate court of appeals, his pet project. Yang headed the top court from 2011-2017. 
The Seoul Central District Court ruled that his charges were proven and that he posed a risk of destroying evidence. 
Prosecutors are widely expected to formally indict Yang later this week, right after the Lunar New Year holiday, which ends Wednesday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if Yang is such a risk to destroy evidence that he needs to be jailed why did they not jail him before the Lunar New Year?

Another rival of current ROK President Moon Jae-in is heading to jail:

Former South Chungcheong governor and one-time presidential contender An Hee-jung was placed under immediate detention on Friday after a Seoul court sentenced him to three and half years in prison on charges of rape and sexual assault. 

The verdict overturned that of a lower court and was the latest twist in a roller-coaster scandal that ensnared the highest-profile figure in Korea’s Me Too movement. 

The Seoul High Court Friday afternoon ruled that An used his authority to force his former secretary, Kim Ji-eun, into an adulterous sexual relationship against her will from July 2017 to February last year. 

Nine of the 10 incidents of sexual assault claimed by Kim were accepted by the court, which acknowledged that her disclosures in the case were “natural” and that she had no reason to falsely accuse An and would not benefit from his downfall. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This verdict is pretty surprising to me because so much was done to help cover Kim Kyoung-soo’s tracks during the special counsel investigation:

South Gyeongsang Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo was placed under immediate detention on Wednesday after a Seoul court sentenced him to two years and 10 months in prison for his role in a major online opinion-rigging scandal in collusion with a political blogger during the 2017 presidential election. 

The Seoul Central District Court ruled that Kim Kyoung-soo was a joint principal offender in the crime along with blogger Kim Dong-won, better known by his internet alias Druking, who was given a three and a half year prison sentence by the same court hours earlier.

The two were found guilty of jointly orchestrating a massive opinion-rigging campaign using a computer program to post and “like” thousands of comments on social media that supported Moon Jae-in’s election bid. 

“This crime severely debilitated the healthy formation of public opinion through exchange and debate in an online space,” said Seong Chang-ho, the judge presiding over the case at Kim Kyoung-soo’s sentencing Wednesday afternoon. “The criminality of this case is especially severe since public opinion was mechanically distorted away from the will of the electorate.”

Kim Kyoung-soo’s conviction and jailing marks a mighty fall from grace for a close ally of the administration and a presidential hopeful for the ruling Democratic Party (DP). 

He will retain his position as governor of South Gyeongsang for now, even in detention, but will be removed from office if his case goes to the Supreme Court and he loses. Election laws dictate that any elected official who receives a prison sentence or any fine above 1 million won ($895) are removed from their posts.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but this verdict can still be overturned on appeal by the ROK Supreme Court. Remember that the Moon administration just arrested the last ROK Supreme Court Chief Justice. Maybe they are sending a subtle message to the ROK Supreme Court to not cross the Moon administration. I guess we will see what happens.

I have never heard this excuse before to justify murdering someone:

A former Fort Bliss soldier admitted killing a transgender prostitute, who he said attempted to blackmail and rape him, according to testimony.
Anthony Michael Bowden, who was an active-duty soldier at the time of the crime, faces one count of murder in the death of Erykah Tijerina on Aug. 8, 2016. Bowden was a Patriot Launching Station crewman assigned to 5th Battalion, 52nd Air Defense Artillery, 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
The murder trial began Tuesday in the 384th District Court with Judge Patrick Garcia presiding.
Bowden could get life in prison if convicted of murder.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes news that a Korean national with a US Green Card was recently convicted for illegally voting:

A permanent resident in North Carolina will not face prison time after she was illegally allowed to vote during three separate elections.

Hyo Suk George, 70, was charged with illegal voting by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after she reportedly voted in 2008, 2010 and 2016 in Columbus County. Instead of sentencing George to six months in prison, U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle fined George $100.
George arrived in the United States from South Korea in 1989. She got a green card in 1995 and has worked in housekeeping and fast food, her federal public defender Sherri Alspaugh said. She registered to vote “next to the senior center” after taking the advice of a town council member, according to the News & Observer.

In his ruling, Boyle also expressed frustration towards the elections board in Whiteville, North Carolina, because it allowed George to register to vote using her green card, Social Security number and driver’s license, the News & Observer reported.
“So they see a green card and say, ‘That’s OK’ because they don’t know what they’re doing,” the judge said. “They ought to be a little smarter than that.”

Newsweek

You can read more at the link, but this makes me wonder how much of this illegal voter registration is going on?

Also it shows the weakness of voter ID laws at polling stations when green card holders are allowed to register and polling stations usually require a driver’s license to vote which green card holders can get.

It is amazing how the fraudsters find ways to get money from people in just about every industry, even from animal rights groups:

Park So-youn, the head of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), may be charged with multiple crimes including habitual fraud, as she allegedly had more than 250 animals euthanized without telling the group staffers and supporters.

Kwon Yu-rim, a lawyer at Yuldam Law Office, said Sunday they will file a complaint with the police as early as this week.

The move follows a CARE staffer revealing that some 250 healthy animals the group had rescued have been put down upon Park’s order between 2015 and 2018 without the knowledge of most of the other CARE members.

CARE is one of the nation’s largest animal rights organizations, collecting about 1.5 billion won to 2 billion won of donations per year.

Kwon said Park could face criminal charges as she has continued doing so without informing staffers and donors.

“CARE has been raising funds under the name of rescuing and treating abused animals. It has never informed people of the euthanasia practice and many of the donors would not have contributed their money if they had known about that. In that sense, her action is fraud by nonfeasance,” Kwon said. “As she has continued such acts, it is habitual fraud.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The NCO in this article was right to take this to a court martial because she was acquitted of all charges:

 A senior noncommissioned officer accused of pointing a pistol at one soldier, calling another fat and improperly touching a third’s hair was acquitted of all related charges at her court-martial Wednesday.
Sgt. 1st Class Jessica Barboza was found not guilty of dereliction of duty, maltreatment and disrespecting an NCO by a panel of nine male officers and senior NCOs. At least four of them had to agree to acquit.
“I’m relieved,” said Barboza, 35, of the 2nd NATO Signal Battalion in Naples, “I’m just grateful to the jury members.”
Criminal charges were brought against Barboza after she declined to accept nonjudicial punishment, following a command investigation into complaints about her more than a year ago.
“You won’t see these crimes on ‘Law & Order,’” prosecutor Capt. Mike Gerrity conceded in his closing argument. “But this is the military. Sergeant 1st Class Barboza failed to put her soldiers’ needs above her own.”
Testimony against her included that of two soldiers who said she’d pointed a 9 mm pistol at one of them during weapons training, which Barboza said wasn’t true. Another soldier said Barboza humiliated her by repeatedly calling her fat, while an African-American staff sergeant said Barboza had touched her hair without permission and then called it “nasty” when rebuked.

Stars & Stripes

You can read the rest at the link, but the NCO basically said that these soldiers were out to get her because she is too gung-ho. She said that in the future she will try to be more sensitive.

I have ever seen anyone get court martialed and face a year in jail for incidents like this before:

If found guilty, the sentencing guidelines call for up to a year in jail and a bad conduct discharge. The charges against her stem from three incidents, which Kman described in his opening statement.
Pointing a 9mm pistol at another sergeant during preliminary marksmanship instruction at the range near Allied Joint Force Command Naples in November 2017 constituted dereliction of duty, he said.
“She said, ‘Stay still so I can find my sight picture,’” the prosecutor said. “The government doesn’t care if SFC Barboza thought she was being funny.”
Repeatedly calling a specialist fat in front of other soldiers was maltreatment, he said, and Barboza had committed disrespect of a noncommissioned officer when she touched the hair of an African-American staff sergeant and made a derogatory comment.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Makes me wonder how big the market for fake refugee applications is in the US if this is even happening in South Korea:

A 34-year-old Ukrainian woman was sentenced to 14 months in jail for helping other foreigners draft fake refugee applications, Tuesday.

The Incheon District Court said the woman “repeatedly disrupted immigration processes” by writing false refugee applications for 57 foreign clients who arrived in Korea on temporary B-1 or E-9 visas.

According to court documents, the woman cooked up clients’ stories telling of prosecution in their home countries, including kidnapping, rape and unfair treatment by law enforcement, between March 2017 and June 2018. She was paid 200,000 won per application by a broker company that linked her with the foreign clients.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.